經典科幻文學:《基本上無害 Mostly Harmless》 第12章5

A great wump of hot air welled up from the explosion throwing Ford and Colin violently up into the sky. Ford fought desperately and blindly to hold on and failed. He turned helplessly upwards through the sky, reached the peak of a parabola, paused and then started to fall again. He fell and fell and fell and suddenly winded himself badly on Colin, who was still rising.

爆炸產生了一大團熱氣，猛地把福特和科林往天上拋。福特眼前一黑，拼命想要穩住科林，不過沒有成功。他無助地往上翻滾，到達拋物線的頂點，停住片刻然後開始往下掉。他掉啊掉啊掉啊，突然重重地砸上了科林，這傢伙還在上升中。

He clasped himself desperately on to the small spherical robot. Colin slewed wildly through the air towards the tower of the Guide offices, trying delightedly to control himself and slow down.

他死命抱緊圓乎乎的小機器人。科林瘋了似的打着轉，不斷旋向《指南》的辦公大樓，高高興興地嘗試控制住身體放慢速度。

The world span sickeningly round Ford’s head as they span and twisted round each other and then, equally sickeningly, everything suddenly stopped.

他倆繞着對方旋轉，福特胃裏也是天旋地轉一陣噁心，然後，噁心的感覺絲毫不減，一切都突然停住了。

Ford found himself deposited dizzily on a window ledge.

福特發現自己暈乎乎地癱在窗臺上。

His towel fell past and he grabbed at it and caught it.

他的毛巾從身邊落下，他伸手把它抓住。

Colin bobbed in the air inches away from him.

科林就在離他幾寸遠的地方飄上飄下。

Ford looked around himself in a bruised, bleeding and breathless daze. The ledge was only about a foot wide and he was perched precariously on it, thirteen stories up.

福特透過一層傷痕累累，血跡斑斑，氣喘吁吁的迷霧四下打量起來。窗臺不過一尺來寬，他自己挺警惕地坐在上頭，離地面足足十三層。

Thirteen.

十三層。

He knew they were thirteen stories up because the windows were dark. He was bitterly upset. He had bought those shoes for some absurd price in a store on the Lower East Side in New York. He had, as a result, written an entire essay on the joys of great footwear, all of which had been jettisoned in the ‘Mostly harmless’ debacle. Damn everything.

他知道他們在第十三層，因爲旁邊的窗戶是黑的。他氣得心煩意亂。那雙鞋子是他在紐約東區買的，價格極其誇張。爲此他還專門寫了一篇評論，講的就是穿好鞋帶來的巨大樂趣。文章當然堙沒在信息的洪流中了。這該死的生活。

And now one of the shoes was gone. He threw his head back and stared at the sky.

而現在其中一隻鞋也已經沒了。他猛地揚起腦袋，把目光投向蒼穹。

It wouldn’t be such a grim tragedy if the planet in question hadn’t been demolished, which meant that he wouldn’t even be able to get another pair.

要不是那個星球已經毀滅，這事兒本來還不會那麼悲情，現在他想重新在搞一雙也辦不到了。

Yes, given the infinite sideways extension of probability there was, of course, an almost infinite multiplicity of planets Earth, but, when you came down to it, a major pair of shoes wasn’t something you could just replace by mucking about in multi-dimensional space/time.

沒錯，既然可能性會分出無窮無盡的枝丫，那兒當然也存在數量無窮無盡的地球；但實際上，一雙棒極了的好鞋，你真以爲在多維空間/時間裏隨便混混就能爲它找到替身嗎？

He sighed.

福特嘆了口氣。